Personal Velocity

The Fourth Agreement: Always do your best

By doing your best, the habits of misusing your word, taking things personally, and making assumptions will become weaker and less frequent with time.

So what to make of this? This new situation that promises to lift me up from my state of comfort and predictability and throw me into the throes of turmoil once again? When I am placed, yet again, in a position to have to make the choice of spending another few months in personal volatility – moving between two, nay three cities. Three cities that I have always fantasized about living in, and even, until very recently, have felt the push and pull from in all directions.

What does one do when one is expected to do ones best and is not really given much choice in terms of ones physical environment and personal circumstances? When the parameters have been rolled out for you and you are expected to work within those and then expected to make your decisions and take your actions within those boundaries? Do you then, feel free at some level and trapped at another?

Free at one level from the humongous prison that the Ego bestows on itself and on me…by having to make choices and exercise control in every which way? But trapped on another level – again by the Ego since it feels it’s losing its grip on me – my ownership and resulting experiences will be governed by forces that are outside its realm. I am no longer a subject of the kingdom of the Ego. I am a subject of something else… anything else, it does not matter…the only thing that matters is that it is not the Ego. And so there is this deep anxiety and fear and frustration for not having charge of controlling my life experience.

And what do I do in all of this? Do I really feel that I am being controlled by internal or external forces? The personal ego within and the world ego without? Do I feel that no matter how hard I try, the experience of living my life will always be subtly or overtly influenced by forces beyond my control?

Or do I not? Do I feel that all of this that is happening is really of my own making and doing and causing? That “I” who experiences this is the one that is completely in charge of the quality of the life experience? Simply by choosing to follow these four agreements? That if I do my best, in whichever circumstance, without really questioning who or how this is being controlled, then by the process of completely immersing myself in the experience, I will choose to be impeccable with my word and I will not take things personally and I will not make assumptions and I will create my own kingdom of heaven on this earth.

And with this information in mind and heart I need to move through life in a way that does not question, influence, assume, suggest, deny, doubt or fear. I question, certainly, not to negate but to confirm and clarify. I speak up, not to challenge and destroy but to support and evolve. I acts, not to impress or influence but to create and fulfill the dream.